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The Ram Page

Why is Facebook under fire?

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Facebook has recently come under fire for the sharing of over 50 million users data to a political firm known as Cambridge Analytica.

The user data includes anything from the ad data that Facebook collects when you search something to the pages or posts that you like on your Facebook timeline.

The slippery slope begins with the fact that the data was collected under false pretense. An independent researcher by the name of Aleksandr Krogan claimed to be collecting the data for research purposes, but was actually funneling the data to Cambridge Analytica.

Krogan created an app that allowed users to take surveys for small amounts of money, and when they logged into the app, it collected their information, along with the data of their non-private friends.

Facebook does not allow outside companies to gather data on their users unless the data is being used for academic purposes. Once Facebook learned of the violation of its terms, it demanded that Cambridge Analytica delete all of the data that it had received from Krogan according to Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

Another issue that has arisen is that while the company claims to have deleted all of the data that was passed to them, there is no definitive proof that they did.

The news agencies that broke the story, The New York Times and The London Observer claim that a majority of the data is still in existence.

Facebook has been working to find out if the data is still in existence, and the company has suspended all parties involved in the leak.

Both the British parliament and the United States Congress have summoned Zuckerberg, the for questioning regarding the links between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica is a political consulting company based out of the United Kingdom that works with candidates to help determine what the general public opinion on political matters is, and it does this by using collected searching and Facebook patterns.

According to the New York times, this firm was then using the data to help direct the Trump campaign team with their online ad presence.

Earlier this year, Facebook was also under fire after it came to light that Facebook was being used by individuals seeking to spread Russian propaganda, according to the New York Times.

Facebook has been claiming that they have done nothing wrong, and that they had no idea that the data was being used for non-academic purposes.

The Facebook stock has taken massive hits over the past few weeks, dropping 8% from the original value.

There are steps that users can take to protect some of their data. It is important to make profiles as private as possible so that the data cannot be collected without the user’s consent.

It is also important to read the terms and service agreements of the things that you use on the internet, because they may be collecting far more data than you may realize.